


Ashes of War

by VentrueRosary



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:26:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25382305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VentrueRosary/pseuds/VentrueRosary
Summary: "But there are no Gods in such a place. There can't be. Battlefields are playgrounds for the demons"





	Ashes of War

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back from long years of hiatus with a canonical one-shot for Amaranthe! This was originally posted to tumblr, but I posted it here after it received no love or attention. Comments and kudos appreciated!

Rain falls, soddening the hard earth to slick mud. The downfall drowns her. She can't breath. Her lungs pull in air, yet she suffocates.  
Help...someone help...her breathless voice can't carry the words, but they repeat in her mind like a mantra. But there is no help. The sound of battle echoes in her ears. They can't help her. Only she can.  
Amaranthe's hand slaps the wet mud, sinking in half an inch as she turns over onto her front. _You can do this. Just stand. Get up. Get up!_  
Her hands slip. She lands face down in the mud. The strength flees her body. One sounds cuts through the haze. Footsteps.  
Amaranthe raises her head enough to see the heavy chainmail boots. She raises her eyes to the face. A blur of colours.  
'Who…' She is so tired. Even speaking is a herculean effort.  
They kneel and offer their hand. The sun breaks through the clouds, haloing the stranger. She weakly raises her hand, eventually reaching it. When she stands, they are gone. Perhaps they were never there. A dream induced by her mind to spurn her body to action. Because the fight is not yet over. She fastens both hands around her sword, and rallies herself with a battle cry as she runs back into the fray.

There is a part of war all the novels and plays skip over--the aftermath. When the victors stand amidst the remains of the battlefield, searching for other survivors and witnessing the destruction of war. Men and women missing limbs, trying desperately to tuck spilled organs back inside, clutching at their wounds, crying out for their parents or God. But there are no Gods in such a place. There can't be. Battlefields are playgrounds for the demons. Each horror surpasses the last, but Amaranthe forces herself to look at every single one. She needs to see what this war wrought. She needs to be reminded of the cost.  
Several hands reach out, grasping at her boots or tail coats, silently beseeching aid. The only help she offers is a dagger through the throat.  
She reaches a rise, giving a vantage point over the carnage of broken bodies and abandoned bodies. The rain had long since stopped, and everything seemed to still and silent. The dying were now dead and she stands alone in a sea of ghosts.   
The sword slips from her limp fingers. There is no need for steel anymore.  
'Are you proud of me?' She whispers, unsure who she asks. Herself, her patron, her parents…  
A wet choke draws her attention. Someone still clinging to the vestiges of life. She picks up her sword, limping down the hill to the survivor. A sun elf, fair of skin and gold of crown, mud and blood staining his fine armour. The hands reach for her, even as his emerald eyes widen with horror. She places the sword back in the sheath.  
'Traitor,' she says. Her voice lacks venom. She's too tired for hatred.   
Theodrin coughs. The gaping wound in his neck bubbles as he gasps for breath.  
'No barbed insult? No bigoted slur?'  
He splutters something. Amaranthe leans in closer, ready for the customary greeting of "bastard" or "half-breed".  
'P-please...kill me…'  
Amaranthe leans back. She stares at her Uncle as he hangs in limbo between life and death. She had ghosted her way across the battlefield, killing the dying like the reaper of death. Yet she offers Theodrin neither sword or dagger. She gives him only time. He wheezes another plea.  
'If only someone was here to save you, Uncle.' She brushes his hair back from his bloody throat. 'I was hoping to see you on the battlefield. I wanted my hand to be the one to slay you. But now, given the opportunity, I no longer want to.'  
Another wheeze. His gaze is accusatory.  
'You always said I was a good for nothing bastard. I suppose in the end you were right. Take comfort in that as you find your way to your grave.'  
Amaranthe watches the erratic rise and fall of his chest, the flow of blood pulsing from his wounds until he expires. His chest stills and the wound runs dry.  
Her legs give out. She falls prone, staring up at the grey sky choked in smoke. The sun begins eking out as her eyes slide shut…

The war ends, but its memory clings to her, visiting every dream. The gore, the stench, the horror...she never escapes it. She questions who the true victor was that day. Dying is easy. It's living that is hard. Continuing on after everyone else leaves, learning to live with oneself, and what they have done.  
Amaranthe thought for a moment she expired on that battlefield, when her eyes peeled open to the pure, dazzling light. Her eyes, dry and tired mistake blurriness for clouds. The fog clears to the white and gold marble of the palace. Not heaven, home.   
'Welcome back, Princess.' The healer smiles over her. A benevolent and gentle man who only sees war through the injuries he heals.  
Touched by age in his thinning hair and drooping skin, but not by horror and trauma.   
'I'm home…' she mumbles. Voices still roar in her eyes. Her hands are empty. Her fingers twitch, longing for the comfort of cool steel, knowing soon it would grow hot with blood. But it's not in her hands, no by her bed where where WHERE. She has to find it...she needs to be ready…  
'Princess, please. You need rest.' He pushes her back against the pillows.  
'No, no no. I can't rest, you don't understand--'  
'I promise you Princess, I do. The ordeal you and the other survivors endured leaves you restless and paranoid.'  
'You can't possibly understand. You haven't seen what I have seen.  
'No. I admit. But I have seen soldiers return from war try to adjust to peace. Let yourself be at rest. There is no one left to fight.'  
'You are wrong. There is always someone left to fight.'


End file.
